


SLD Case Report: The Elemento Encounter

by tptplayer5701



Series: "Mind Games"-verse [38]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arson, Crime Fighting, Crimes & Criminals, Elemental Magic, Original Character-centric, Police Procedural, Post-Hawk Moth Defeat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29196399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tptplayer5701/pseuds/tptplayer5701
Summary: A “Mind Games”-verse SLD case:The Superhero Liaison Department deals with every type of crime imaginable as it assists the Heroes of Paris by investigating superhuman criminals. Some of the time it’s a villain with a miraculous or an enormous electrical blog; other times, it’s a carjacker playing in the mud.“We have a report of a carjacking in the 13th Arrondissement,” announced the SLD’s dispatcher.“We’re responding to carjackings now?” Ray asked rhetorically, raising an eyebrow at Gouger from the passenger seat. “What’s the ‘super’ part?”“The victim said that she stopped because she hit a bump in the road and thought she had run over something. She got out of the car to investigate but a sudden gust of wind knocked her to the ground. She caught a glimpse of a mound of earth beneath the car, but it disappeared as she watched. Before she knew what was happening, the car door slammed shut and the car sped off. Is that ‘super’ enough for you?”
Series: "Mind Games"-verse [38]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666807
Comments: 12
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

The radio crackled to life as Sergeant Madeleine de Gouges turned onto the Rue de Rivoli to continue their patrol route on the east side of Paris north of the Seine. The sky overhead was clear and bright on this early November afternoon, without a cloud in the sky. “We have a report of a carjacking in the 13th Arrondissement,” announced Élodie Carré, the SLD’s dispatcher.

“We’re responding to carjackings now?” Ray asked rhetorically, raising an eyebrow at Gouger from the passenger seat. “What’s the ‘super’ part?”

Élodie paused for a moment, the keys of her keyboard clicking. “The victim said that she stopped because she hit a bump in the road and thought she had run over something. She got out of the car to investigate but a sudden gust of wind knocked her to the ground. She caught a glimpse of a mound of earth beneath the car, but it disappeared as she watched. Before she knew what was happening, the car door slammed shut and the car sped off.”

“So we’ve at least got some sort of potential elemental manipulation,” observed Gouger, mouth twisted up in concentration. Quickly she ran through the possibilities in her head. “Could it be a miraculous?”

“Just based on the powers, that does sound like Tyran-X,” Ray observed.

“Possible, but unclear,” Élodie answered. “Corner of Sand and Italie. Respond and evaluate.”

“That’s halfway across the city,” Gouger argued. “Don’t we have anyone closer?”

“Something like this, I’m steering the regular police clear until we know what’s up,” Élodie informed her. “And Ramus and Moreau are even further away.”

“Of course they are.” Ray rolled his eyes. “Still, chasing down a rogue miraculous user sounds like a lot more fun than explaining to another old lady that ‘Monsieur Mitaines’ probably wasn’t eaten by an alien!”

Gouger shrugged, flipped on the car’s siren, and pulled a U-turn across traffic before she accelerated down the street. “Or that supposed ‘invisible man’ who turned out to just be insane?”

Ray chuckled. “That was probably the most… unique… public indecency call I’ve ever gotten!”

“I was _not_ disappointed to turn that one back over to the regular police.”

“Not at all,” Ray agreed. He hummed in amusement. “I heard he thought he could walk through walls at the prison. The wall itself disagreed, if his concussion was anything to go by!”

With a sharp turn toward the Pont Neuf they were across the river. Gouger took a measured breath and put on her game face. After spending four years on the street, two in the special Tactical Response Unit until its dissolution after Hawk Moth’s defeat, and the following year in the BRI, getting recruited to the new Superhero Liaison Department had been a dream come true. The Tactical Response Unit had proven to be powerless against the Akumas and had resigned itself to doing nothing more than keeping civilians out of the way until the heroes arrived. Not so the SLD; Prefect Raincomprix had promised that this Department would be different. Rather than be relegated to a glorified crowd control unit, they would be actively investigating super-powered crimes. Rather than watching from the sidelines, they would actually assist the Heroes of Paris against some of the threats they face. Her investigative experience was still somewhat limited – she had come up in Public Security, not the Judicial Police – but that hadn’t mattered to Raincomprix. He needed people he trusted.

“What do you think this will be, Sarge?” Ray wondered as they turned onto Sand. “Miraculous? Tech? Alien? Alien miraculous tech? What’s your money on?”

Not taking her eyes off the road, Gouger gave him a deadpan look. “We can’t jump to any conclusions,” she warned him.

“Oh, I know,” he replied, shrugging. “Still fun to speculate.”

Traffic south of the river was light for the time of day, and the patrol car arrived at the crime scene only about ten minutes after receiving the call. The victim, a woman in her forties with bottle-blonde hair and wearing a professional suit, stood on the street corner, arms folded, drumming her fingers on her elbow. The two officers exchanged a dubious look before exiting their car and approaching her.

“It took you people long enough to get here,” the woman complained irritably, rubbing her arm in agitation. “I’ve been waiting here forever because _someone_ stole my car! I have places I’m supposed to be!”

“We understand that, Madame,” Gouger assured her, nodding. “We will do everything in our power to find the person responsible.”

“And recover the vehicle,” added Ray, giving Gouger a look.

Gouger nodded. “Of course.” She pressed two buttons on her tablet. “If we’re going to do that, though, first we need your information – name, residency, description of the vehicle…”

“My name is Gabrielle Sartine,” she began, her voice trembling. “I live in the 5th Arrondissement, um, Rue Larrey. I teach at Sorbonne University.”

“Good – that’s good, Mme Sartine,” Ray encouraged her. “You’re doing fine. Now can you describe your vehicle?”

“A blue 2019 Renault Clio,” she replied, her eyes running up and down the street anxiously.

“Can we see your license?” asked Gouger.

Mme Sartine gasped, wide-eyed in shock, patting her sides . “My–my purse! It was in the car!”

Gouger started making notes on her tablet. “Did you have anything else _in_ your purse? Wallet, cash, ATM card…”

“Yes, all of that,” she answered, nodding. “Makeup, PDA… My university computer was in the trunk. My daughter’s backpack was in the passenger seat – I’d only just dropped her off at her after-school program. And they got all my keys: apartment, university, bank box…”

Gouger cocked her head. “Which bank?”

“BNP – the one closest to the University.”

Gouger raised her eyebrow at Ray, and he stepped away before hitting the button on his radio. “Élodie, send Lt to the BNP near Sorbonne University, 5th Arrondissement. Victim has a box there, and the perp got her key. They also got her apartment key.”

While he was on the radio, Gouger turned her attention back to the victim. “Tell me about the incident,” she instructed her. “What did you see? Anything unusual?” Mme Sartine shook her head hesitantly but stopped, her mouth turning down into a frown. “There’s _something_ ,” Gouger pressed.

The other woman nodded, slowly but gaining confidence. “I was waiting at the light when I thought I saw a young man on the corner watching my car a little too closely – you know that feeling you get, right? Like your skin is crawling?”

Gouger nodded. “Of course. Can you describe him?”

Mme Sartine shrugged. “He looked… average. Average height, average build, didn’t look any different from a hundred students I see every day at the University.”

Gouger furrowed her brows and cocked her head. “Do you think he was a student? Might you have recognized him from the University?”

“I–I don’t know. I teach so many students every semester…”

“Was he dressed unusually?” Gouger asked next. “Funny outfit, colorful suit, fancy jewelry…? Any of that ringing a bell?”

The woman shook her head. “No. I think he was wearing one of those hoodie sweatshirts or something like that – green, I think? Nothing exciting. I couldn’t describe him any more than that.”

“Okay, you’re doing fine. But what about describing _him_? Tall or short? Hair light, dark, or somewhere in between?”

“Maybe a little taller than me. Fair skin. I think his hair was black.”

 _Him and half of Paris_ , thought Gouger. Nevertheless, she entered the information into the correct lines on her reporting form. She eyed Mme Sartine carefully. Even with the information they had now, it was hardly anything to go off of. Without more than this, the chances of finding the criminal or the stolen car were next to nil. “What about the incident itself?” she asked next. “You told the operator that he was manipulating earth and air. Can you describe it?”

“I–what?” the woman asked, head cocking in confusion. “No, it–it must have just been really windy for a couple of mintues. It felt like I was being blown off my feet. And the dirt… I don’t know. Maybe I was confused.”

“Madame,” Gouger interrupted, holding up a hand to forestall her protestations, “Let’s be honest here. There hasn’t been an unusual level of wind all day. The reason my partner and I are here is because we believe you. If you think you were attacked by someone who could cause earth to move and create gusts of air so powerful they could knock you from your feet, then we will assume that is what happened.”

She sighed in relief. “Oh, thank goodness. I was so worried people would think I was losing my mind. I mean, I know the Heroes of Paris are around, and I still remember Stormy Weather, but all the same. Even _with_ all of that, who actually expects to have their car stolen by someone playing with soil?”

“Describe it,” Gouger instructed.

“I mean, it wasn’t all that much,” was the unhelpful response. “I was blown off my feet and fell to the ground. The earth under my care was there one minute, and gone the next. I’m not sure what else I can say.”

Seeing Ray walking over, Gouger nodded and stepped away. “I assure you, we will find this man who attacked you – and hopefully we will recover your vehicle,” she told her before she turned to face Ray, who had a troubled look on his face.

“Struck out at the bank,” he reported. “Bank security reports nothing unusual whatsoever. Lt is going to check the apartment building next.”

“Then what’s the look for?” she asked sharply.

“I think we’re missing something,” he began slowly.

The radio on Gouger’s shoulder crackled. “We have an alert from the Sorbonne campus police for a super-powered disturbance,” reported Élodie. “A building burst into flames spontaneously. Ramus and Moreau are en route but request backup. A local patrol is less than a block from your location to assist your victim.”

“Something like that,” Ray commented.

“Acknowledged,” Gouger responded immediately into the radio. “On our way.” She started toward the car but hesitated, glancing over at the victim, who was giving them a curious look. “Madame,” she began, “we may have some new information about the person responsible for your car theft. Another officer will be here shortly to escort you home.”

Mme Sartine nodded hesitantly as the two officers quickly jumped into their car. “O–okay.”

Gouger hit the button to turn on their lights and siren as they tore up the street, weaving through traffic to avoid a couple pedestrians and skirt past a line of cars. Smoke billowed into the sky from a location to their north, and Gouger steered directly toward it. “From the witness description it doesn’t sound like we’re dealing with a miraculous here,” she explained. “Though we can’t rule it out of course.”

“Still, it does sound like Tyran-X’s powers,” Ray pointed out.

“Not his MO.”

“Fire is currently on the scene,” Élodie told them. “Their water isn’t even touching the flames.”

“ETA one minute,” Ramus announced over the radio.

“Same,” Gouger replied, pulling a sharp turn onto the University campus.

“So what the hell are we walking into?” wondered Ray.


	2. Chapter 2

Following the trail of smoke, Gouger pulled up in front of Sorbonne University’s burning campus center to find Ramus’ car already parked beside a trio of Fire Brigade vehicles – two pumpers and an ambulance – under a small line of trees with their leaves just starting to fall off. Next to the ambulance, one paramedic treated a man with burns on his hands while another checked a group of students with ash and soot staining their faces and clothing. A patrol car from the local precinct had arrived already, and the two officers had established a perimeter to hold back the growing number of students and other bystanders who were beginning to crowd together on the far side of the parking lot. While Moreau was not visible, Ramus stood next to the fire engines with to a man whose jacket identified him as the captain, gesturing toward the building. Flames towered out of the campus center, engulfing its entire roof as well as the façade on the front. A small lake had formed in the grass directly in front of the building, appearing several centimeters deep but stopping abruptly a meter away from the building’s foundation. As Gouger watched, the firefighters sprayed water over the building’s roof, only for it to be repelled as though by a magnet. The water misted away from the building, a rainbow of colors appearing in the drops as they sprinkled over the firefighters as well as the crowd.

“Don’t see _that_ every day,” Ray observed, pulling on his hat and climbing out of the car, holding up a hand to keep the water out of his eyes.

“No, I sure as hell _hope_ we won’t start seeing that on a regular basis,” agreed Gouger, joining him. She turned her back on the fire to instead focus her attention on the crowd, scanning the faces carefully. “What’s the plan?”

“For the moment, Fire Brigade is stymied by whatever this is,” Ramus told them. “The good news is that so far the fire is at least contained to this specific building. But the Fire Captain says at this rate the building is going to be a total loss. And there’s nothing they can do until whatever is causing this interference stops – so that’s where we come in.”

“If there is a connection to the carjacking we were investigating, we have a possible description,” Gouger reported into the radio. “The perp we are looking for may be a student: male, average height or a little taller, dark hair, wearing a hooded sweatshirt,” she announced.

Over the radio Moreau scoffed. “That’s probably at least a third of the student body,” he noted. “What’s the vehicle?”

“Blue ’19 Clio,” Ray answered immediately, moving down the line away from Gouger and closer to the main road.

“License plate?” Moreau asked.

While walking along the front of the crowd in the opposite direction as Ray, Gouger consulted her tablet. “87 SRB 23.”

Moreau hummed. “I’m standing right next to it. Parking lot on the far side of the campus center.”

“Well, that answers _that_ question,” Ray observed wryly.

Gouger furrowed her brows in concentration. If she were this criminal, she would want to watch the consequences of her manipulation; that the water kept being redirected would suggest that the person controlling it had to be close by. Looking at the faces in the crowd she quickly eliminated close to a third of the students – the women, those who were markedly shorter. Several of the faces looked worried; she dismissed them for the sake of speed. One young man stood near the front of the crowd, staring at the fire with a look of concentration, strain in the corners of his mouth, and Gouger’s eyes were drawn back to him over and over. His hair was largely hidden by a cap, and he wore a T-shirt instead of a sweatshirt, but… Behind her the firefighters sprayed the fire again, and the young man’s lips moved slightly. “I think I have something,” she stated into her radio, starting to work her way through the crowd in that direction. “At my 10 o’clock. Green shirt and blue hat.”

“I see him,” Ray told her. She could see him on the far side of the crowd, moving toward her.

“Move in, but don’t spook him,” Ramus ordered, maintaining his position near the fire trucks.

Gouger was only about five meters from the young man when he seemed to realize that she was there and started slowly backing away from her, elbowing the people behind him out of the way as he did so. “Hey!” she called, her vision narrowing in on the suspect as she picked up her pace. “Paris Police: I have a few questions for you!”

The suspect’s eyes widened in fear, and he turned on his heel before bolting away. Gouger let out a curse and broke into a sprint, pushing her way through the front row of the crowd. “Police! Stop!” she bellowed. People parted for her to pass, but the suspect remained a couple steps ahead of her. Suddenly he turned around and flicked his wrist in her direction. A gust of wind picked up around Gouger, stripping the leaves from the trees lining the sidewalk and blowing them into her face. Her hat blew off her head and disappeared. Gouger raised an arm to protect herself, blinking furiously against the wind that threatened to dry her eyes out entirely. She could feel her feet slipping and leaned forward into the wind, dropping to place her hand on the ground in a sprinter’s stance for stability.

Shouts came from the crowd around them as bystanders dispersed in all directions to escape the punishing wind. Gouger forced herself to move steadily forward, step by step, using her hands to keep herself grounded and pull herself along through the wind. But as abruptly as the wind had started, it disappeared, and Gouger nearly lost her balance and fell forward, only catching herself with her hands. She put on a burst of speed and came up in a sprint, racing after him. The distance between then narrowed by half.

Before she could reach him, suspect snapped his fingers, and water condensed out of the air in front of Gouger, dropping to the ground in a puddle. As she splashed through, the water sloshing in her shoes, she raised an eyebrow dubiously. How was this supposed to stop her? His eyes widened in fear and, seeing empty space in front of him, the man broke into a dead sprint, his footsteps pounding against the sidewalk as he raced across the campus. Gouger put on a burst of speed, but even still the distance between them began to increase.

“Whatever you did worked,” announced Ramus. “The firefighters’ water can actually reach the fire now.”

“Suspect identified,” Gouger reported, panting from the exertion. “In pursuit, heading south from the campus center. He can at a minimum control air, water, fire, probably earth.”

“On my way,” Moreau responded. Out of the corner of her eye, Gouger could see him racing over from the far side of the quad. “I’ll cut around the building up here and try to cut him off.”

The suspect disappeared around a residence building’s corner just ahead of Gouger. Pushing herself even faster, she followed him around the corner moments later, but the yard on that side of the building was deserted. The suspect was nowhere to be seen. “I lost him,” she groaned, slamming her fist into the side of the building and chipping the bricks. Movement near the building’s far corner drew her attention and she saw a blue hat fall to the ground. “Stop! Police!” she shouted, sprinting after him as he scrambled out from behind a bench and slipped around the corner. She turned the corner just as the suspect dove into the row of rose bushes planted along the front of the residence building. The roses rustled, and the young man emerged a moment later. “Seriously,” Gouger told him, giving him an annoyed look and folding her arms, “just surrender now and answer some questions for me. At this point you’re just digging yourself a deeper hole, and I really don’t feel like chasing you again.”

“Okay…” the young man began, his eyes darting around in all directions.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

The suspect feinted to the left but broke to the right, trying desperately to escape. Gouger, however, dove after him and caught him around the ankles, slamming him to the ground with a grunt of pain. He planted his feet on the ground and tried to push himself back up to his feet, despite Gouger pinning his legs together. Overbalancing, he spun his arms in a desperate attempt at regaining his balance before falling back down. With a grunt of frustration, he twisted in her grip, squirming against her hold. Desperately he kicked out at her, catching her in the face with one foot.

Gouger, however, merely closed her eyes as his feet connected and opened them again, glaring at him. “Seriously?” she groaned in annoyance. “Just surrender already!”

Moreau ran around the building from the other direction, his sidearm out. “Don’t move!” The suspect stilled instantly, staring down the pistol’s barrel.

“You’re really starting to get on my nerves,” Gouger told the suspect, not bothering to hide her irritation.

He clenched his fist and gritted his teeth, and she pushed him down into the ground, rolling him over onto his stomach and placing her knee firmly on his back, pinning his arms as she affixed her handcuffs around his wrists.

“You are under arrest,” she told him as she and Moreau pulled him up to his feet. “And now you are coming back to the station to answer some questions.”

“I didn’t do anything,” he insisted, squirming in her grip.

She gave him a deadpan look. “Have you heard of the phrase ‘resisting arrest’? Just running away is suspicious enough for us to question you.”

“You surprised me,” he replied, shrugging. “I didn’t know what you were after me for.”

“Because an innocent man would run away when a police officer approaches him,” Moreau scoffed, rolling his eyes and tightening his grip on the suspect’s arm.

“I’m telling you, you’ve got the wrong guy!” he insisted, squirming against their grip on his upper arms.

Gouger gave him a severe look and guided him through the crowd of whispering bystanders toward the patrol car. “That isn’t going to work on me,” she informed him. “I saw _exactly_ what you were doing just now, and you were manipulating the elements. Now, how did you do it?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

Putting her hand on the suspect’s head, Gouger pushed him down and into the car’s backseat. She frowned at Moreau over the car’s roof before slamming the car door shut. “Let’s see if that’s still your story when we get you into the detainment room.”


	3. Chapter 3

Gouger stood with Ramus in front of a monitor in one of the two rooms on the near side of the basement level set aside exclusively for the SLD’s laboratory and testing facilities. The remainder of the open-plan floor was dark, apart from the room they were in and the single occupied holding cell built into the far wall. The monitor showed the interior of that cell: their prisoner sitting on a rough cot bolted to the floor, his elbows resting on his knees, staring down at the cement. Gouger frowned: something in his attitude wasn’t adding up. For some reason, the prisoner appeared to be strangely unconcerned with his situation.

They had brought him to headquarters two hours ago, escorted him inside through the back entrance, and thrown him in this jail cell after a brief examination to await his interrogation. The Spartan room was one of two new, specially reinforced cells which had built directly into the wall, designed by the SLD and Heroes of Paris with special features intended to keep super-powered criminals contained until they could be transported to prison. However, while she had no delusions of her own ability to escape such a cell, Gouger privately wondered whether they would actually hold up to someone like Taureau Dechaine with his level of overwhelming strength. But despite those concerns, in the case of their current prisoner it was proving to be more than sufficient; the young man, who had given his name as Jean Papon and whom they had identified as a student at the University, had made no move to break out or even attempted to use his powers since they had captured him. On his arrival he had allowed them to examine him without a fight, content to wait them out in silence. Gouger narrowed her eyes suspiciously as she stared at the monitor, watching him continue to sit still, the occasional fidget the only indicator of his nervousness.

“What do you make of him?” Ramus asked, giving her an evaluating look.

“He’s a little too calm and collected for someone who was arrested and thrown in a secret prison cell underground,” observed Gouger, frowning. “But what the reason could be…”

Vernant walked into the room from his lab and stopped on the other side of Ramus. “Every test I have run on M. Papon has come back normal,” he reported. “I scanned him for implants – nothing but a tooth, and that just a normal dental implant. I checked his DNA – a cursory analysis shows it to be that of a normal human, though I sent a sample out for further analysis. No unique jewelry, no unnatural aura that I could detect… nothing to explain his control over the elements.”

“The Heroes of Paris have reported cases of magic users with unique, innate abilities,” Gouger pointed out. “Could this be an example of that phenomenon?”

“Anything is possible,” Vernant allowed, nodding. “But never having had an opportunity to study any of these so-called sorcerers for myself, I couldn’t tell you what scientific explanation there is to account for what they do.”

“Well, until we know any more, we need to assume he is simply suppressing his abilities for some reason,” Ramus decided. He raised an eyebrow at Gouger. “And as far as _why_ … I suppose at this point we have kept our guest waiting long enough.”

She nodded firmly and followed him across the open space in the center of the lab floor to the cell, which resembled nothing so much as a concrete bunker on the outside with a double layer of bulletproof glass separated by clear hardened plastic across the front to provide a viewing area. The inside was lined with a nonreactive material, the ventilation funneled into its own filtration system, and it had a built-in foam suppressant system in case of fire. The only concession to comfort – the only piece of furniture in the cell – was the cot, made of lightweight aluminum and bolted to the floor. And on the couch sat their prisoner, his hands folded in his lap. He looked up as they approached

“What can I do for you officers?” he asked, eyeing them calmly.

“You caused quite a stir this afternoon,” Ramus began, gauging his reaction.

“Let’s see,” Gouger added slowly, ticking items off on her fingers. “You started a fire – arson, with a super-crime enhancement. You broke into your professor’s office – breaking and entering. You attempted to change your semester grade – academic fraud. The University already expelled you for that one as an aside. You stole the professor’s car – grand theft auto, with another super-crime enhancement. You assaulted the professor – assault and battery, and there’s a super-crime enhancement on that one, too. You can thank Hawk Moth for the doubling of your prison sentence when you meet him, by the way. Should I keep going?”

His eyes widened. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he insisted.

“You mean the Keep Paris Safe Super-Crime Law?” Ramus asked, surprised. “According to the University you are – or more accurately _were_ – taking law courses at Panthéon-Assas, so you should already know. Any crime committed using superhuman abilities brings with it an automatic doubling of the minimum sentence. That means–”

“That means that you’re going away for a _long_ time, Papon,” finished Gouger, raising her eyebrows at him.

“Not _that_ ,” Papon insisted. “I mean the charges against me. You said you think I…” He cocked his head. “There’s no way I could have done any of that!”

Ramus gave him a hard look. “Do you expect us to believe you?” he asked dubiously. He turned to Gouger. “Is he being serious?”

She raised an eyebrow in amusement. “He sure _sounded_ serious…”

“The water manipulation preventing the Fire Brigade from putting out the fire stopped the moment Sergeant de Gouges accosted you,” Ramus told him.

“The wind that nearly blew me away came from your direction,” added Gouger.

“We know it was you,” Ramus finished.

“I’m telling you it wasn’t me!” Papon insisted, pounding his chest. “I have no idea how it was happening! I’m just as much in the dark as you are! So why don’t you tell me where I am and let me go? I know my rights: you can’t hold me here indefinitely. I have a right to speak to an attorney.”

Ramus shook his head in amusement. “No wonder you needed to commit academic fraud to pass,” he observed wryly. “You should have paid a little better attention in class. You do have those rights, and you are going to speak to an attorney eventually, but the super-crime enhancement brings its own caveats to how we honor those rights. Now I’ll ask you again: how were you doing it?”

“I _wasn’t_!”

“Do you really expect us to believe that you just _happened_ to snap your fingers right before a mass of water formed together out of thin air?” Gouger deadpanned, raising an eyebrow. “And you just _happened_ to be in the area when the earth moved under your professor’s car so she stopped, right before her car was stolen?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“You could start with the truth,” Ramus suggested. “How did you do it?”

“I’m telling you, I didn’t! You’ve got the wrong guy!”

“If you had wanted us to believe you, you should have changed more grades than just your own,” Gouger informed him. “The fire damaged a lot of the physical evidence, but our lab was able to reconstruct everything that you did to the grades on your professor’s computer before setting the office on fire.”

“My grade was changed?” he asked innocently. “I didn’t know anything about that.”

“Why don’t you lie to me a few _more_ times?” Ramus told him, fixing him with a deadpan expression. “I’m sure I’ll believe it eventually.”

“Because criminals _always_ tell us the truth…” Gouger scoffed. She shook her head. “Fine. For the sake of argument, let’s say that it _wasn’t_ you, and that someone _else_ was manipulating the elements and committing academic fraud. Why would this unknown person be doing all of this just to frame you? Why would they just target _your_ teacher and _your_ grades?”

Papon sat back and shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you,” he replied. “Maybe it was a super-genius who knew you would be suspicious. Maybe someone didn’t like me.”

“Whatever the reason,” Ramus informed him, “we have more than enough evidence to charge you. And unless you explain to us exactly how you did what you did, we have no choice but to assume you are a serious risk and remand you to await trail.”

“Wait… remand where? Where are you going to send me?” he asked nervously, his cool façade finally breaking.

“There’s a new wing at La Santé for super criminals,” Gouger explained. “If you won’t tell us how your power works, you’ll be sent there with the other high-risk super-powered offenders, just in case. That will be your home for the duration of your sentence – you won’t even be allowed to see visitors in person for fear that you might use your powers on them.”

“What!?” he yelped, all pretense of calm dropping away. “But I don’t have powers!”

“Are you going to tell us how all of that was happening, then?”

Papon clenched his mouth firmly shut and shook his head. “I’m telling you, I can’t do anything anymore!”

Gouger cocked her head. “‘Anymore’?” she repeated. “So you were able to do it before.”

Papon stared at her in shock, flushing.

“How were you controlling the elements?” demanded Ramus, eyes narrowing.

Papon remained silent and turned away from the window, folding his arms.

“Was it tech?” Gouger asked.

No response.

“Was it magic?”

Again, no response.

Ramus frowned and turned to walk away. “If that’s the case, I hope you enjoy hanging out with the super-villains,” he called over his shoulder.

Gouger followed him across the lab floor to the monitoring room where Vernant still stood in front of the screen, waiting for them. He looked up as they walked into the room and stroked his chin contemplatively.

“What do you make of him?” Ramus asked.

“In what sense?” Vernant responded, frowning. “I have no doubt that he was responsible for whatever happened. But how it happened is still unclear.”

“So he _is_ guilty?” Gouger clarified.

Vernant gestured to the smaller monitor showing Papon’s vital signs. “I cannot prove that in a court of law using this. However, I was watching his heart rate and blood pressure during your interrogation, and based on that, he knew exactly what was going on. But he _was_ probably telling the truth when he said that he didn’t have the ability to do it anymore.”

Ramus furrowed his brows dubiously. “So are you suggesting that we don’t need to put him in the super wing?”

“Not at all.” Vernant shook his head. “My analysis could be wrong. He could have guessed that we were monitoring his vital signs and changed his heart rate to fool us. I would still recommend that he be kept in the super wing, at least until we can determine exactly what the source for his abilities was or is.”

“Have we received the arrest paperwork yet?” Gouger asked.

Vernant nodded and passed a sheet of paper to them. “The prison transport will be here for him in an hour.”

“Good: that way he can be someone _else_ ’s problem tomorrow.” Ramus let out a yawn. “Care for a drink?” he asked them both.

Vernant nodded. “I will join you for a drink this evening.” He hit a button on the control panel. “Élodie, and then Mathieu, can keep an eye on our guest until the transport arrives.”

“Sounds good to me, too,” Gouger agreed as they all got on the elevator together. “I’ll meet you at the bar; I just have one quick stop to make on the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow I'll have another "Life and Times" one-shot, with "Group Therapy" starting the day after.


End file.
